Russian Oil Production in Apparent Decline March 28, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Angst, Business, Chemical Industry, Economics, Energy, Social Issues.add a comment
According to an article by Greg Walters at Bloomberg.com, crude oil output in Russia is expected to decrease for the first time in 10 years.
“Two years ago, we said the growth rate was falling, and we said this was bad for Russia, remember?” Trutnev said in televised remarks after a government meeting in Moscow today. “Now we’re saying the production rate is falling this year. This is not a bogeyman, unfortunately, this is real,” Trutnev said, without giving a specific forecast.
The petroleum problem in Russia seems to stem from the lack of investment in exploration in combination with exorbitant taxes on the industry.
Gail the Actuary has an interesting post on the post-peak-oil economy. Gail is a contributor to The Oil Drum Discussions. It’s all kind of gloomy. Time for a nice glass of Bordeaux.
NIH Manditory Open Access March 28, 2008
Posted by gaussling in Business, Chemical Industry, Chemistry, CounterCurrent, Science, Science Education.2 comments
According to C&EN, the NIH has issued a rule that publications resulting from NIH funded research be submitted to PubMed Central for posting. Naturally, organizations with copyright interest in published research is less than enthused by this ruling.
What has happened over the last century is that a sizeable publishing industry has grown up around the publication of periodicals specializing in scientific research. In exchange for release of copyrights, authors get free or nominally priced access to publishing and distribution of their work. For their part, publishers tap into a continuous stream of refreshed content that is virtually free of charge.
Counterbalancing the low cost of content are the sad facts of subscriptions. Many (most) journals suffer from low distribution numbers, so the zero cost of content helps to keep overhead down, but publishing and distribution costs cannot benefit from the economy of scale.
The special interests seem to be sitting in watchful waiting, but they have raised the issue of copyright. Their concern is that they are being forced to distribute their property by the strong arm of NIH without the chance for reimbursement. This could resolve to a property rights battle and as such, I can’t imagine that the NIH would prevail in the courts.
